Europ-ing

I had the opportunity to go to Europe for the first time on an international business study abroad as part of my master's program. It was amazing! The program was scheduled to spend time in Linz, Austria and Prague, Czech Republic.

A few of us from the program traveled there and home together. We flew into Munich, took a train into town and spent about four hours checking out the Marienplatz area. Big thanks to Ryan for tips on where to go in Munich. We wandered around and ended up at Hofbrauhaus for some nice weisswurst, orangeade, and potato salad. From there we caught a train to Linz. We spent most of our time in Linz. We had classroom sessions, company visits to Team 7 Furniture, Fischer Skis, Rosenbauer a high-end fire truck manufacturer, and Oberoesterreichische Nachrichten the leading newspaper in Upper Austria. I ate a lot of good food, fantastic desserts and pastries, and took a good walking tour of old Linz.

We did have one free day where a group of us took off to see Vienna for the day. We spent most of our time near St. Stephans Cathedral/National Library/Spanish Riding School/Parliament area. Ate more good pastries, at more good food, saw some good statues, art, buildings, etc.

We only spent about two and a half days in Prague. Prague was awesome. We had an amazing dinner at a place that overlooks Prague Castle, a group of us then walked back to the hotel and saw many of sites at night. In Prague we took tours of Ruckl, a crystal manufacturer and a division of Parker-Hannifin that made o-rings and various seals. Czech food was delicious and I was utterly amazed at the amount of history that is there.

Yes that is an extremely short description of the trip, if you want more details just ask. Check out the pictures. Unfortunately Picasa sucks and only lets you upload five photos at a time (there are about 200 that I'd want to upload. I have an album uploaded at Snapfish but it won't me slideshow here so to see all the pictures you have to go here.

If you want to know what a specific place is or what certain was just let me know and I'll tell you. For now I am tired and this is where it'll end.

Blanding & New Mexico

To help cut costs at work everyone has to take an unpaid week off. I took mine last week (it happened to coincide with having the 3rd off in celebration of the 4th) so we had 10 days. We went down to Blanding to visit Jessica's sister Amy and her family for a week and then to Farmington, NM to visit Adam and Lisa.

We did a lot and it could be a ridiculously long post but instead you get a nice bullet list with a slideshow at the end:

• Had our first head-splitting-open experience ever with our kids (It was Maya and luckily she didn't need stiches)


• 4th of July Parade


• Fireworks Show


• Jessica ran the Blanding 5k


• Mountain biking


• Homemade ice cream


• Swimming pool + high dive


• Snow cones


• Sprinklers, slip-n-slide, and water fight


• Reading


• Practicing spinning Poi balls


• Wii


• Lake Powell + ferry + 100 degree temps + small cliffs for jumping


• A couple hikes to Native American Ruins


• Board games


• Lots of food


• Evenings hanging in the backyard


• Flying kites at the park


• Four wheeling


• Clay pigeons


• Shooting handguns (my first time ever)


• Flea markets + fry bread


• Jacuzzi


• More playing in the pool outside and waterfights


• Movies


• Playing at the lake


• Kayaking at the lake


• Remembering how to roll kayaks at the lake


• Bocceball


• Jacuzzi


• Driving

Whew! It was an awesome trip. Enjoy the pics.